


The Anatomical Structure of Love and Trust

by Catthhay



Category: Undertale
Genre: Action, Dude. Dadster., Eventual Smut?, Humans Suck, Magic, Magic experiments, Maybe - Freeform, Multi, Not too much, Plot, Reader is a descendant of mages, Romance, Scientist Reader, Slow Burn, Soul Magic, Terrorism, Why am I torturing myself?, compared to my other readers this one is pretty sane., gaster is a big part of this., not enough time, not evil gaster, racist issues, reader is messed up a bit, reader is smart, that doesn't say much tho, too many ideas to write about
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-30 06:19:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catthhay/pseuds/Catthhay
Summary: God that is the longest title I have ever made for a story of mine ever. It is thus subject to change.You are a well known scientist, very well respected and renowned. Monsters surfaced from the underground a little over a year ago, and one of the children's books you wrote on marine biology causes you and certain skeleton monster to become friends.But you are the first human scientist to start studying and researching magic and souls. Not only is there human bigots to deal with that don't want you to legitimize anything that has to do with monsters, but there is soon a call for help from the one ecosystem you never even knew existed, if you can even call it that.The Void.





	1. The Signature

Monsters.

  
Very few had known of their existence before the barrier containing them in the underground was broken. The mages that were initially responsible for their imprisonment had quickly decided to keep the knowledge of the barrier restricted to their group of seven and the army that had helped push the monsters to the mountain they were locked under. Most of the soldiers had not even been close enough to see the Spell being worked, and within two generations the Barrier, and Monsters, had become myths and legends. Only the descendants of the seven mages to cast the spell knew of what had happened in the past, and of the race that had shared the surface with humans so long ago.

But eventually, even most of those descendants forgot or chose not to believe their history.

Then, only the very few families in charge of keeping the journals and magical research of the long extinct mages had any insight into the past of humans and monsters. Only those three families entrusted with the magic records of years past knew about the War and the Barrier.

~~~

You hummed as you floated in the giant tank, the sound coming out muffled and odd through your oxygen mask. This job might not be what had gotten you famous years ago, but you loved it. Being able to throw yourself into the nitty gritty work, working up close with the animals you studied-- it was your favorite part of the field you had gone into.

"He looks good to me," you reported to the man swimming next to you, also fully in scuba gear. "Full recovery, and the scar has healed beautifully. No infection," you patted the side of the shark you had been swimming next to and looking over gently. It swished its tail in a slightly-more-aggressive wave than usual, but didn't make any move to attack you. You knew it was just being sassy, and laughed.

"Looks like Luke doesn't like you following him around everywhere and patting him like a dog," the man that was with you quipped.

"Oh you know he just wants to swim and be left alone," you said back to him, letting Luke swim away without you now that your check up was done. "I've given him check ups for three years now, and he hasn't attempted to bite me even once."

"Uh huh. What about that one time six months ago?" He crossed his arms at you, and you knew he was smirking behind his oxygen mask. You put your hands on your hips, making both of you look ridiculous under water.

"What was exploratory. I pulled away before he could do more than pierce my suit, and he left me alone," the guy laughed and the two of you finished checking up the few other fish, one of which was another shark, that you were scheduled to check before climbing out of the tank.

This was the Ebbott Aquarium, where you volunteered to do free checkups on some of their wildlife every now and then. The man who had been watching and helping was one of the Aquarium's newer marine biologists in charge of doing those routine checks, he had only been working there for about two and a half years and his name was Mark. You knew Luke longer than you had known Mark, but he was decidedly better at conversations than the shark was. As a newer biologist who had just finished all his schooling not long before he got this job, he was always assigned to shadow and assist you when you came to volunteer.

After the two of you changed out of your swim gear and into normal clothing (an Aquarium uniform for Mark and jeans and a t-shirt for you), you said your goodbyes. You met with another Aquarium employee in front of the tank that held Luke and other sharks and large fish. This woman was someone you didn't know, she was a newly hired tour guide that would do presentations for some of the animals.

Like the one you were going to do right now.

In front of the tank were rows of benches so people could sit and watch the sharks, since they were one of the most popular animals in the Aquarium alongside the dolphins. You were pleasantly surprised to see monsters in the crowd as well. They had broken the barrier only a little over a year ago, and integration was progressing-- but slowly.

"Hello folks!" The guide said cheerfully beside you. "As I'm sure you've seen from the posters we put up last week, we have a special guest today to do a Q&A session! Every time she volunteers here at Ebbott Aquarium, she does her presentation on a different marine animal. Today is the presentation many people have been waiting for-- because today's subject for Q&A is sharks!" She continued by introducing you by name. "She is the current most famous biologist in the country. With degrees in five branches of Biology, she is the youngest woman to ever to prove her proficiency in that many branches of science. She had published books in all of those five sciences, with the most of her books being published on Marine Biology and Zoology, with three published books to both branches. It is thanks to her research that new policies and practices have been implemented to slow and even stop the extinction and endangerment of several species of animals in air, land, and marine ecosystems alike," you politely smiled throughout the speech, hating how they always seemed to make you out to be a bigger deal than you felt you were. Plus, the woman was slightly inaccurate in her phrasing and it irked you. The woman finished with; "Now I'm going to let the Doctor say a few words before you can begin asking questions."

You gave her a sidelong look, which the woman pointedly ignored. She had completely neglected to mention your newest research, which was the only thing you were hoping she would talk about. You grit your teeth, knowing your newly public research on magic was controversial and many anti-monster groups deemed it as being a fake science and they doubted you would make any big discoveries or contributions. They even dared to insult you for meddling in "monster tainted areas of life," and saying that humans had no business trying to understand monsters or their magic. Oh, you were all too eager to prove them wrong.

Those thoughts had only taken two seconds to fly through your mind, and you now focused on your audience and cleared your throat.

"Thank you all for coming! As she just mentioned," you gestured to the guide at your side, "Marine Biology and Zoology are my two favorite of the five branches I have studied. Marine biology in particular holds a special place in my heart. I've swam in nearly every major body of water, both deep sea and otherwise, studying marine life. Sharks remain one of my favorite marine animals, and I would love to help you all learn more about them. Who wants to ask the first question?"

You chose a Shyren to be the first to ask a question. Mostly because you wanted to know what she could possibly want to know about sharks, considering she was already very fish-like and you had no idea what she might want to learn that she didn't already know. The poor girl was so shy that you had to kneel in front of her to hear her question.

Once you managed to decipher what she was saying, you stood and smiled widely. "That's a good question! For those of you who might not have heard her--" you ignored the snickers that followed your words, "--This lovely lady just asked about the different types of sharks in the tank behind me. Each shark actually has a name. There is Luke," you pointed to your old friend, who was conveniently swimming right behind the glass behind you, allowing everyone a very good look at him. "Luke is a sand tiger shark. They get their name from how the top of their bodies is colored like sand, and when they are born they have stripes along the tops of their bodies as well, which look a lot like tiger stripes. As the shark ages the stripes fade until they are eventually nearly invisible. Sometimes, as you can see with the other Sand tiger shark in the tank, the stripes become spots in a slightly darker shade than the rest of their skin..." you continued to detail the other sharks in the tank, your voice animated. Sharks were gorgeous creatures. You loved them.

You continued answering questions for roughly twenty minutes before you ended the session. Waving to everybody, you sat on a bench to sign books from a few brave fans who came wielding some of the ones you had written. What the guide had also failed to mention was that the three marine biology books you had published were only the detailed, full length books meant for adults. You had published an additional five books meant for kids and preteens to read, with basic information mixed with some lesser known information and observations from your research.

And the last person in line for an autograph handed you one of those very books. You smiled at it, fond of your books meant for the younger generation. You ran your hand over the cover for a moment before opening it and asking, "Who shall I make it out to?" You had been so engrossed in your trip down memory lane with the book that you hadn't even looked up to see who had handed it to you.

"papyrus. he's my little bro, and this is the few science books i could get him to read. he loves it, and i wanted to personally thank you for writing it. it's hard to get him to read anything that isn't an overly cutesy child's story," the man chuckled. You smiled. 

"He sounds like a great boy," you replied, under the impression that this Papyrus was a child as you wrote out a brief message to him in the front of the book.

"he's the coolest, though i can't really call him a 'boy' anymore, he just turned twenty. he's smarter than most people think, though, he's just overly fond of child's books," he chuckled again. "it's one of the many things i really love about him," you smiled and laughed softly.

"I admit that it's shocking that a grown man reads children stories still, but it's actually pretty endearing. I wish I still held onto that much of my childhood," you admitted with a sigh. You finished the note and looked up to hand the book back.

You froze.

It was a skeleton monster.

A short, lazy looking skeleton monster with a perma-grin and a fluffy blue hoodie. He saw you staring at him, and his grin widened.

"heh. skeleton got your tongue?" He held up his hands and made a show of checking them. "nope, i don't have it," his goofy joke made you laugh, and you handed him the book back before standing up.

"Sorry," you apologized with a lopsided grin. "One of the five fields I have a degree in is anatomy," his eye lights (you were fascinated by them and had to stuff your scientific curiosity back into the farthest reaches of your mind so that you didn't come off as a complete weirdo to the guy) widened. Then he laughed.

"well! that's a coincidence, huh? here i was thinking that my bro and i were the only ones in our group of friends that you wouldn't want to study," you tilted your head at this, and he smiled even wider. "my bro's best friend is a fish monster, her girlfriend is a lizard monster, and the king and queen are goat monsters," you covered your mouth to suppress a laugh.

"That's a biologist's dream!" You laughed. "Although you guys are monsters, not animals. Though..." you rubbed the back of your neck. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely curious. For example, your bones are at least twice the circumference of human bones and it looks like they are each connected in a way that human bones aren't," you completely lost track of your restraint and picked up his hand, tilting it this way and that to examine the bones and joints. He suffered it for a minute or two before he began to shift uncomfortably.

"uh, bud? i'd like my hand back, if you don't mind," You dropped it quickly, your face heating up with a dark blush.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry, I got carried away, and-"

"it's fine," he said, clearly holding back laughter. he held out his other hand to you. "how about a normal handshake this time though? i'm sans, sans the skeleton. the lizard friend i mentioned is alphys, she's our royal scientist. or, she was when we were underground. now she's a professor at the university."

Your eyes lit up. If they could sparkle, you knew that they would be shining brightly enough to blind someone by now.

"No way! I've been meaning to meet with her. I'm sure you've heard about it on the news and whatnot, but I've been publicly studying and researching magic since not long after the barrier was broken. And she made Mettaton's body, didn't she?" Mettaton was a well known monster celebrity on the surface. It didn't take long after the barrier was broken for his popularity to take hold, and he was an international icon for monsters now. Sans was watching you, but you didn't notice. You continued to rattle on about reasons why you wanted to meet Dr. Alphys.

He had promised to himself a long time ago that he wouldn't get more involved with science again than necessary. But, Stars, seeing you get so enthusiastic about it roused his own old, long buried enthusiasm for science.

"well, i'm actually supposed to meet frisk, the kid that freed us, along with alphys and my bro and the queen for lunch in an hour. i'm sure they won't mind having an extra person joining us."

You grabbed his shoulders, beaming. "Really?" You stepped back, letting go of him and looking sheepish again. You bit the inside of your lip. "Are you sure? I don't want to intrude, it's you guys' lunch--"

"'s fine," Sans interrupted you with a lazy wave of his hand. "i'll just call 'em to let them know that i'm bringing a guest. alphys has been wanting to meet you too, actually. she's really excited that you're the first established human scientist to consider researching magic, and she has been wanting to help."

"Okay," you nodded with a huge smile, flattered that the well known and already hugely respected monster scientist actually wanted to help you out and supported your new research. "Okay, yeah, I'd love to join you for lunch then!"

"sansational."

"D-did you just..?" You smiled widely. He smiled back.

"the only part my bro complained about in this book," he held up the book you had signed a few minutes ago. "was the vast amount of marine puns you put in it."


	3. Hiatus

This story WILL be continued, but for now it is on hiatus until my two main stories (Masks and Meanings and House of Hazard Skeletons) are a lot farther along. Thank you. 


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